Western Ocean (Id. No. 3151)
1918-1919
The Navy retained the name carried by this vessel when she was acquired.
(Id. No. 3151: displacement 12,185; length 423'9"; beam 54'0"; depth of hold 29'9"; draft 24'-" (mean); speed 12.5 knots (maximum) ; complement 91; armament 2 3-inch)
Joffre, a single-screw, steel-hulled cargo ship earmarled for the Compagnie Generale of France, was laid down on 6 December 1917 at Portland, Oregon, by the Northwest Steel Co., and launched on 19 March 1918. Completed on 31 May 1918 at Portland, Oregon, by the Willamette Iron Works; the ship was delivered to the U. S. SHipping Board (USSB) on 17 June 1918; transferred to the U.S. Navy and renamed Western Ocean ; and commissioned the same day at Portland, Lt. Cmdr. J. M. Silversteen, USNRF, in command.
Ten days later, Western Ocean sailed on her maiden voyage, bound for the Hawaiian Islands. Arriving at Hilo, Territory of Hawaii, on 8 July 1918, the cargo vessel loaded 8,800 tons of sugar and got underway again on the 13th, bound, via the Panama Canal, for the east coast of the United States. She arrived at Philadelphia on 15 August, unloaded her cargo, and promptly took on board 6,830 tons of general Army cargo for U. S. doughboys on the western front. She then sailed for New York to join an east-bound convoy, which sailed for Europe on 10 September.
Arriving in France on 27 September 1918, Western Ocean unloaded her goods and sailed on 24 October for Newport News, Va., on what turned out to be her last wartime voyage. She arrived at Newport News on 11 November, the day the Armistice ended hostilities in the Great War [World War I].
The work of supplying U.S. forces still in France, however. remained, and the ship made two more voyages carrying cargo to La Pallice, France. She arrived at Norfolk, Va., on 18 May 1919; was decommissioned and simultaneously stricken from the Navy Register on 22 May 1919; and returned to the USSB on the same day.
Western Ocean remained in the custody of the USSB and of its successor, the U. S. Maritime Commission, until late 1941 when she was transferred to the United Kingdom to serve the British Ministry of War Transport under management of G. Heyl & Sons, Ltd., as Empire Opossum. She sailed under this name until 1949, when she was sold to James Steamship Co., which renamed the vessel Mariane Clunies.
Sold to German interests in 1950 (D. Oltmann, of Bremen, Germany) the fomer NOTS cargo ship was renamed Ansgaritor. Renamed again, to Schlussel Reed, in 1953, she was ultimately broken up for scrap at Rotterdam, Holland, in 1959.
Updated, Robert J. Cressman
21 February 2024
